Friday, October 31, 2014

Call it what you like. Ghosts,
spirits, superstitions, or belief in the paranormal are part of life in Hawaii.
Even if you have just moved out here, it won’t take long before you run into
someone who insists on blessing a home or someone who refuses to live in a
house without ti leaves nearby. It simply comes with the territory.

I’ve always been fascinated by the
subject. I remember in elementary school looking desperately for scary stories
to read about. And for all of the superstitions and local lore we have in
Hawaii, there weren’t a lot of books on the subject.

Sure, they were easy to come by when
everyone gathered around during sleepovers to talk about them. I can still
remember being scared of the Guava Man at Camp Maluhia (it might have been Camp
Keanae). That was the strange man that came out of the woods looking for kids
to take back with him into the dark. Everyone had stories about vanishing
hitchhikers, Madame Pele, or the night marchers roaming the old trails and
beating drums.

But you could never find a place to actually read
about this stuff. Our library had Eric Knudsen’s “Spooky Stuffs,” which
featured not only homegrown ghost stories about the Garden Isle, but brilliant
watercolor illustrations of Guy Buffet. Knudsen’s stories featured giants,
one-eyed monsters roaming the mountains and woods, and skeletons. They were
timeless and seemed to have come from a different era. None of his stories were
about modern Hawaii.

That all changed with Glen Grant’s
“Obake: Ghost Stories of Hawaii.” Unlike Knudsen’s timeless stories about
Kauai, Grant’s tales took place in metropolitan Honolulu. They were told by
local folks, who had witnessed something supernatural. Some saw the faceless
woman in the ladies’ room at the Waialae Drive-Inn. Others claimed to have felt
the presence of ancient spirits on lonely stretches of the roadway out to Kaena
Point. All of the stories were on Oahu.

Grant got popular when I was in high
school in the 1990s. Not only did he write books, but he also conducted walking
tours around Honolulu at night. He even made it out to Maui once. I remember
going to hear him tell stories at Iao Congregational one night around Halloween
time. He was a fantastic story teller and it always seemed like he was smiling
as he talked about mythology or some kind of weird tale.

His books made me think that I could
do something like that too. My chance came when my English teacher told me I
had to write a book report. Now, back then, I hated reading (most people have a
hard time believing that). I couldn’t get through a novel to save my life. So I
chose a book I read already: Glen Grant’s.

My teacher saw right through it and
challenged me to do something more than just write a report. What I came up
with ghost stories of my own? If Glen Grant went around Oahu for decades
collecting ghost stories, why couldn’t I do that for Maui?

I used the book report as an excuse
to call anyone who’d talk to me about ghosts and the supernatural. I sat down
with windsurfers or hippies, there were retired cops, the long-time residents
recalling the by-gone territorial days, and the hotel workers who had all kinds
of rumors floating around the work place.

It was my first taste at
interviewing witnesses. I was learning as I went. I took notes and put it all
together until I had the story. Then I’d set out writing it down. In the end, I
had about fifty stories. One of them got published.

I stopped the ghost project when
people started calling my house asking me to investigate the spirits in their
own home. No thanks. I’d rather listen to a good story. The last thing I wanted
to do was see a ghost.

By then, I was finishing up high
school and I was in the school paper and starting to outgrow the subject
anyways. But Grant and the experience got me hooked on writing and stories. Glen
Grant was not a literary genius, but he was a local author. He wrote about
Hawaii and entertained people with his stories about the weird, the
unexplained, and the downright scary.

I never met him when I moved back. He died in 2003,
the year I graduated from college with a journalism degree. But he’s far from
forgotten. Glen Grant’s student and protégé, Lopaka Kapanui, has picked up
where he left off and continues to talk story about the unexplained. His books
are still reprinted and sold all over the place. Who knows? He may even appear
in a ghost story of his own someday.

Friday, October 24, 2014

Two mystery men in Hawaii politics are
in the biggest race in the State.

Let’s start with David Ige. Who’s he? Here are the basics:
David Ige’s from Pearl City on Oahu. His father served in World War Two in the
famed 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team, saw action in France, and earned
a purple heart and the bronze star. After the war, he worked as a steelworker
in Honolulu. His mother was a registered nurse and a dental assistant. They had
six boys. David is the second youngest.

Ige got his degree at UH in electrical engineering
and later got a master’s degree in business administration while working at GTE
Hawaiian Tel in the 1980s. He was an engineer in the private sector for a long
time before Governor George Ariyoshi appointed him to the House to fill a
vacancy in 1985. He’s been in politics ever since. He remained in the House
until he switched over to the Senate in 1994.

But what exactly are Ige his politics? For starters,
he’s got some of the trappings of a classic Hawaii liberal. He has voted in
favor of the gay marriage bill. He has openly criticized the rapid development
of luxury condominiums in Kaakako and has said such development is
irresponsible. And a few weeks ago, I noted that he’s open to dispensaries for
medical marijuana patients.

One of his favorite talking points is education.
He’s a big fan of public schools and wants to work hard to help out the
teachers, students, and every stakeholder in our public institutions. But
that’s only part of him. What’s he like?

His friends describe him as humble. For
example, when he was nearing the end of his high school years at Pearl City, he
got accepted to prestigious places like University of California at Berkeley
and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He also applied for UH.

But he also knew that his family
wasn’t rich. He knew that it would have been a struggle for the family to pay
tuition for Cal or MIT. It would also make college for his younger brother
harder too. So he didn’t tell anyone and went to UH. Now that’s humility.

The other unknown is Elwin Ahu. Ahu grew up in Kalihi, but, like Ige,
was raised in Pearl City. He went to Kamehameha Schools and was a volleyball
star. After a career in volleyball at Graceland College in Iowa, Ahu got his
law degree from the University of Hawaii in 1980.

Ahu was a trial lawyer with stints
at Legal Aid in Molokai, then as a public defender in Honolulu before entering
a private practice. He worked civil and criminal jury trials on Oahu until he
was appointed as a full-time District Court judge in 1994. By then he’d been
married twice.

Back in 2001, he was featured in the
Honolulu Star-Advertiser. He was candid about what was going on in his life at
the time. He said that as his family life started to disintegrate, he found a
new faith while sitting in traffic.

He pulled out an old tape with a
pastor’s sermon on it. That led to him attending the New Hope Christian
Fellowship and Pastor Wayne Cordeiro. Things started looking up for him.

“Once I put God in my life,
everything went click, click, click,” he told the Advertiser. Click it did. In
1997, then-Governor Ben Cayetano appointed him to the Circuit Court and a year
later he married a third time.

He remained on the circuit court
bench for only two years before stepping down to become a full-time pastor at
New Hope Metro in Honolulu. He announced his candidacy in February of this
year.

When he did, he said that
“government leaders are no longer grateful, it seems, for Divine Guidance, nor
are they mindful of our Hawaiian heritage, consequently we’ve lost our
uniqueness as an island state.”

Later, in an interview, Ahu said
that his decision to run for office came from what happened with the same-sex
marriage debate in in 2013. He said that holding the special session as opposed
to a ballot measure moved him to get into politics. Not surprisingly, Ahu
opposed the special session.

Since winning the lieutenant
governor’s slot for the GOP, Ahu has not been making too many headlines of his
own, and his stance on political issues remains unclear. Still yet, many see
him as a rising star in Hawaii politics. Win or lose, no one expects this to be
his last race.

It’s rare in Hawaii for unknown
candidates vying for the top office. It’s a race usually reserved for
well-known and seasoned politicians. Whoever wins this race, our executive
branch will be headed by new faces indeed.

Friday, October 10, 2014

Surely everyone has heard something
about that “GMO thing” by now. It started on Maui back in June with a voter
initiative.

The initiative petition is a unique procedure
allowing voters themselves to propose an ordinance. In other words, it need not
be introduced by Council members. The County Clerk received a voter initiative
containing more than 9,000 signatures asking the County Council to temporarily
ban the farming of genetically modified organisms.

A GMO was defined by “in vitro nucleic acid techniques”
and “[m]ethods of fusing cells beyond the taxonomy family that overcome natural
physiological, reproductive, or recombination barriers, and that are not
techniques used in traditional breeding and selection[.]”

This is the definition used all over the country
that is confronting the same issue. Despite the need for a biologist to
translate what this means in plain English, the consensus seems to be that no
matter how it’s defined, bi-tech companies like Mycogen and the more well-known
Monsanto are going to be adversely effected.

The moratorium would last until more
studies were done to ensure that they were safe for the environment and the
health and well-being of Maui’s inhabitants. The ban could be lifted by the
Council, but it would require a long and drawn out process with comprehensive studies,
a 2/3 majority, public hearings, and a finding by the Council that lifting the
ban would not “result in significant harm and will result in significant
benefits to the health of present and future generations of Maui citizens,
[and] significantly supports the conservation and protection of Maui’s natural
beauty and all natural resources[.]”

And so it began. Monsanto and other
bio-tech companies lobbied very hard against the passing of his ordinance. On
the other side you had the anti-GMO groups and the SHAKA movement. Both sides
presented their experts and the Council sat through hours upon hours of
testimony both for and against. The Council didn’t vote on the bill and by law,
the bill would be decided by the voters in November.

But first—this being America—a brief
interlude into Court. A group of County residents and organizations like the
Molokai Chamber of Commerce and Citizens Against the Maui County Farming Ban
sued the County Clerk and the Chief Election Officer of the State. The
plaintiffs argued that the question on the ballot was misleading and confusing.
Along with the lawsuit came a restraining order prohibiting the question from going
onto the ballot. The Court was unpersuaded and dissolved the restraining order in
September and allowed the question to go through onto the ballot.

And so the stage was set for
November. Voters will be asked a single question:

“Should the
proposed initiative prohibiting the cultivation or reproduction of genetically
engineered organisms within the County of Maui, which may be amended or
repealed as to a specific person or entity when required environmental and
public health impact studies, public hearings, a two thirds vote and a
determination by the County Council that such operation or practice meets
certain standards, and which establishes civil and criminal penalties, be
adopted for Maui County?”

This is why you can’t open a newspaper, turn on the
television, listen to the radio, access a website, or do just about anything
else without getting some kind of message about this question.

The media blitz on both sides is
reaching a feverous pitch. “YES” folks include Native Hawaiian activists like
Walter Ritte and Dr. Lorrin Pang. They are allied with concerned parent-types
and organic-foodies. The arguments for the moratorium are that it’s
“temporary,” and are designed to ensure that GMOs are safe to have around.

Camp “NO” seems to have slick
television ads and highly-recognizable folks. They argue that this moratorium
is unnecessary and will cost the County a lot of jobs. Some are even concerned
about putting local farmers not only out of business, but in jail. (As a
defense lawyer, I had a good chuckle when I saw the ad with former Honolulu
prosecutor Peter Carlisle deeply concerned about a new misdemeanor on the books
in Maui County.).

If the majority of voters check the
“YES” box, the issue might try to get back into Court before the moratorium
goes into effect. Remember Kauai? A similar thing happened when Kauai County
tried to label GMOs. A federal judge ruled the ordinance unlawful this summer.

And if the question is answered in the negative,
then you can bet the opposition to bio-tech companies aren’t going to just pack
up and leave—especially since most of them are born and bred local folks and
Maui residents.

So no matter how this long, wordy and hotly-debate
question is answered, you can bet the issue won’t be resolved this November.